{"id":140983,"date":"2022-10-13T09:33:28","date_gmt":"2022-10-13T08:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=140983"},"modified":"2022-11-25T17:36:13","modified_gmt":"2022-11-25T16:36:13","slug":"will-the-online-safety-bill-keep-journalism-safe-alongside-its-audience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/will-the-online-safety-bill-keep-journalism-safe-alongside-its-audience\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the Online Safety Bill keep journalism safe alongside its audience?"},"content":{"rendered":"

News avoidance and mistrust in the media<\/a> is at a high – perhaps no shock when considering the negative impacts of misinformation<\/a> and harmful content to audiences across the globe.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Will the Online Safety Bill<\/a> (OSB) \u2013 dividing many journalists and press regulators \u2013 ultimately be a force for good in the fight against misinformation and audience disengagement? Or could an increase in regulations for digital content come with blocks to free speech and disempowerment of a public in need of information?<\/p>\n

Vuelio teamed up with Prospect magazine<\/a> for the fringe panel \u2018Does the Online Safety Bill support good journalism?\u2019 during this year\u2019s Conservative Party Conference to uncover the bill\u2019s potential impacts and opportunities.<\/p>\n

Chaired by Prospect\u2019s Alan Rusbridger, the panel featured insight from speakers Damian Collins MP, Matthew Lesh from the Institute of Economic Affairs and Keele University\u2019s Dr Laura Higson-Bliss.<\/p>\n

While the OSB\u2019s remit is chiefly to protect the public from online harms, every panelist acknowledged its complications for the media. In 2022, online content comes to its audiences through a variety of formats \u2013 not just news websites and streaming platforms, but their comment sections, affiliated and unaffliated social media accounts and private messaging platforms like WhatsApp.<\/p>\n

Knowledge of the legalities involved in sharing stories on social media channels<\/a> is already a must-have for reporters wanting to avoid missteps that could be ruled as criminal, and the UK publishing industry already has legal regulations in place \u2013 where will journalism benefit from the Bill?<\/p>\n

Holding social media to account<\/h3>\n

\u2018Everyone around the world is trying to grapple with this problem of online harms,\u2019 said Collins \u2013 Minister for the Bill and a member of the Facebook Oversight Board.<\/p>\n

\u2018There is a debate on whether Facebook is a platform, or a publisher. The users are creating the content here, but the key area is liability \u2013 the curation of the experience. Companies \u2013 the platforms \u2013 have responsibility for that. These are business decisions companies are making and should be held responsible for.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018There is accountability and liability already within the media industry \u2013 the editor of a newspaper has personal liability for what is in it, even the adverts. The addition of liability elsewhere would be a significant improvement for journalism\u2019.<\/p>\n

Where the current lack of these regulations fails the media, according to the MP, is in the danger of companies removing whatever content they want, when they want \u2013 the possibility of free speech being impinged while harmful content could be missed, left online and easily accessed.<\/p>\n

\u2018Tech companies hide behind public statements that are very unclear. Companies make promises, but do those promises reflect what is actually going on?\u2019<\/p>\n

Using the example of YouTube\u2019s removal of the TalkRadio show, Collins highlighted the nature of news as timely; arbitrary strikes and takedowns by businesses outside of publishing can remove time-sensitive news until it is no longer of use or interest.<\/p>\n

\u2018For the news industry, the ability for platforms to start striking things down is very damaging,\u2019 said Collins.<\/p>\n

Freedom of speech: A unintended casualty of the Online Safety Bill?<\/h3>\n

Keele University\u2019s Dr Laura Higson-Bliss raised the ambiguity of the bill, particularly around content deemed \u2018awful but lawful\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018I have issues with a governing body telling adults what is harmful to them. How do we enact change in society if we create separate echo chambers? How can we then challenge those views? It is important that we protect that ability to challenge in the open,\u2019 argued Higson-Bliss.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Government say the goal of this Bill is to make the UK the safest place to be online, but that comes at the cost of visibility and self-expression,\u2019 believes the Institute of Economic Affairs\u2019 Matthew Lesh.<\/p>\n

\u2018By aiming for safety, we are sacrificing our basic ideals of free speech. This will have a number of unintended consequences \u2013 I think it is the intention of the Bill to actually encourage removal. When you threaten companies with fines, what you\u2019re doing is lowering the threshold for removals of content. You\u2019re baking-in the removal of legal speech\u2019.<\/p>\n

Journalism as a protected class<\/h3>\n

Whether journalism does require more protection than views expressed by the public on digital platforms was a concern expressed by Higson-Bliss and Lesh during the discussion.<\/p>\n

\u2018The media can create as much harm as social media, yet it will have protections in this Bill,\u2019 said Higson-Bliss. \u2018We need to look at it again\u2019.<\/p>\n

Lesh added: \u2018I think it is fundamentally unfair to have a privileged class on social media, just because they happen to be a publisher of a mainstream British newspaper. The best way to protect journalism here is to rescope the whole bill and protect everyone\u2019s free speech. Journalists are not more entitled to free speech than the rest of us\u2019.<\/p>\n

There are more perspectives from journalists and the media in our Insights analysis of why journalists are worried about the Online Safety Bill<\/a>. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vuelio teamed up with Prospect magazine for the fringe panel \u2018Does the Online Safety Bill support good journalism?\u2019 during this year\u2019s Conservative Party Conference to uncover the bill\u2019s potential impacts and opportunities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":140987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7365,7272,3725,3729],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140983"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140983"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141580,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140983\/revisions\/141580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}